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Suicide ‘survivors’ find comfort in shared experience

People who have lost loved ones to suicide will meet at a Toronto conference Nov. 19.

Karen Letofsky and Alex Shendelman, of Distress Centres, have organized a Nov. 19 conference for 'suicide survivors' — people with loved ones who have died by suicide. (Cole Burston / for Toronto Star)

Over the past few years, he and Distress Centres executive director, Karen Letofsky, have helped bring the experience of survivors — people who have lost a loved one to suicide — to public attention.

On Nov. 18, Toronto City Hall will, for the fourth consecutive year, host a special flag-raising ceremony for National Suicide Survivor Day, at Distress Centres’ request.

And, on Nov. 19, Distress Centres will host its first day-long survivors’ conference at Metro Hall.

Shendelman and Letofsky have planned workshops and a survivor-led panel discussion on dealing with a suicide loss. Perhaps most important of all, there will be chances throughout the day for survivors to meet with each other.

“When those left behind come together, they are able to share and compare, give and get support as they build a new normal, and move from victim to survivor,” said Letofksy.

Survivors prefer the term “died by suicide” to “committed suicide,” which carries the negative connotation of a criminal act, Distress Centres say.

Toronto Public Health says about 220 people are lost to suicide in this city each year on average.

That’s more than triple the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents in Toronto, and quadruple the number of homicides.

The residue of suffering and pain left behind by suicide can be unlike any other grief.

“The initial shock and the unanswered questions and feelings of guilt around a death by suicide really last quite a long time,” said Siobhan Dowling, survivor of suicide who counsels at Distress Centres.

“It prolongs getting to the point where you actually feel the loss of the person, because you’re really struggling with, ‘Why did this happen? What could I have done?’ ”

Dowling’s younger brother, Brian, died by suicide in 2005, at the age of 24.

She and her parents began attending survivor counseling at the Distress Centres in the aftermath.

“I knew pretty early on that it was something I wanted to be a part of,” Dowling said.

Each session is led by one counselor who has, themselves, lost someone to suicide, and another counselor who has not.

“It’s a loosely guided opportunity for them to have a safe place to talk about their loss and to find some help in managing their grief,” said Esme Hurst, a counsellor in Distress Centres’ Survivor Support Program.

Hurst’s 15-year-old son, Alex, died by suicide in 2006.

It threw her family into chaos, she said. It changed her, and her husband, and their two young daughters permanently.

“Everybody who loses a child, it’s tragic,” said Hurst. “There’s no question about that. But there’s just such complexity around this kind of loss. It’s not easy to grapple with the issues of guilt and shame, a feeling of complete powerlessness that you weren’t able to help your child.”

Attending Distress Centres survivor counselling with her husband helped her. Now, Hurst works to help other survivors with their own grief.

“We’re not trying to fix them,” she said. “You can’t fix it, but we let them talk and we give them suggestions on how to manage getting themselves to a point where they can function.”

For Dowling, survivor-to-survivor counseling is a rare chance for people to share their loss with someone who understands what they are going through.

“Suicide grief is very unique. It’s very different and sometimes very isolating,” she said. “Going through a program like this, knowing that you’re going to be matched with somebody who has experienced that loss is very, very supportive.”

The Nov. 19 conference is an opportunity to make those connections on a larger scale.

“We started with the flag-raising, but we wanted to do something more,” said Shendelman. “We knew there was a strong appeal amongst survivors to have some kind of large community event in Toronto.”

Last year, Shendelman and Letofsky organized an evening get-together for survivors. They hoped to draw 50 people. They got about 120.

The pair decided to expand the event into a full-day conference after hearing survivors’ reactions.

Shendelman recalled a man who had lost a son to suicide, who said last year’s event helped him understand what his surviving son might be feeling.

“He had never realized how hard it is for sibling survivors to be open about it with parents, because . . . (of) an automatic belief that the parents need the most support,” said Shendelman.

That same narrative — of a survivor gaining new insight to their own loss or their family’s — was repeated by many of last year’s attendees, Shendelman said.

“That relatively simple way of getting together has a profound impact on people.”

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